This month sees the launch of an excellent new series of resources for English learners in the Hospitality and Tourism industry. The comprehensive lesson plans, by our industry expert Keith Harding, feature step-by-step teacher's notes and student worksheets at two levels.

Calling all summer school teachers! Onestopenglish is packed with hundreds of bright ideas for your summer school programme. We've handpicked a selection of resources that we think will help make for a stress-free summer.

As a special summer treat for Staff Room members, the onestopenglish reporters have been gallivanting around the streets of Stratford-upon-Avon to bring you another great lesson in our Live From ... series of authentic interviews.

And some more summer good news - we're thrilled that onestopenglish has been chosen as TEFL.net's Site of the Month for July!

There's lots more great content - take your time to explore and enjoy another packed edition of onestopenglish!

The onestopenglish team is very excited to announce onestopblogs, the online grapevine for English teachers. Featuring blogs from the best teachers, trainers and linguists on the web, onestopblogs is your portal for news, views, tips and trends in ELT.

The spring can be a testing time for teachers but, fear not, Adrian Tennant is here to take us through the sometimes controversial topic of assessment in English language teaching with our new series, Assessment matters.

And Jonathan Marks, our pronunciation expert and author of a new pronunciation skills lesson, talks about teaching English, writing and telling jokes in this exclusive interview.

Welcome to the aula virtual! In this online classroom at Globaltec in Mexico, teacher-led sessions are used in conjunction with the interactive resources provided by the Macmillan English Campus. These online tutorials are combined with face-to-face teaching, making it easy for Globaltec to offer intensive courses on a flexible timetable to students at its 20 schools.

Each topic covered in a teacher-led session is supported by a resource on the same topic in the English Campus. Students work through these at their own pace, but must complete specific topics to finish their courses. Teacher interaction focuses on oral work. Clubs, such as literature club, song club and reading club, are organised to focus on written work. Each Globaltec school has a 'supervisor' who monitors the progress of individual students using the markbook and monitoring facilities within the English Campus.

Juan de Dios talks about the benefits that have been brought to students in terms of flexibility - because there's nothing to download or install, the English Campus lets them easily study at home or anywhere with an internet connection.

As he says, 'Our interest at Globaltec is to work with world-class service providers, to transfer the benefits of online learning to our students.' By using the English Campus, they have found a way of combining technology and pedagogy to achieve just that.

To see how Globaltec are highlighting their online offering on YouTube, please click here to view >

'The greatest benefit is that the English Campus adds value to our school and courses' says Nino Nizhardze, Director of English Studies at the Caucasus Academic Centre (CAC) in Tbilisi, Georgia. They have been using the Macmillan English Campus since September 2008 with all of their English students.

Asked why they chose to adopt the English Campus, she says that 'we wanted to make ICT an integral part of our studying process. Although we had been using the internet and some software before, it lacked organization and systematic use.'

The variety of material available in the English Campus has helped put their computer facilities to better use. It also helps teachers to keep a closer eye on students' progress, using the automatic markbook and downloadable statistics.

Schools often ask us how exactly English Campus users incorporate the resource into their lessons. For CAC, the starting point is to assign each student to a course at their level. Once they are set up in the system, students are taken to the school computer room every two weeks for a lesson based around the Macmillan English Campus.

Equally important is the emphasis that is put on self-study and the opportunities that the English Campus provides for students to work without constant teacher input. As Nino says, 'We strongly encourage our students to work on the English Campus outside the classroom … Students know when they are expected to have completed the course and the teacher monitors their progress regularly.'

For the Caucasus Academic Centre, choosing the English Campus has helped make better use of their IT facilities, enhanced their course offering and excited their students.

Introducing the first Interactive Worlds...

Interactive Worlds are a flexible, topic-based learning resource, newly available to British English users of the Macmillan English Campus and subscribers to www.onestopclil.com.

With beautifully presented video, audio and interactive exercises, these content-rich Worlds are ideal for use in the classroom with a projector or interactive whiteboard and include integrated whiteboard tools, such as a pen, highlighter and colour palette.

The first three Worlds are the Animal Worlds, focusing on the natural environment. Each of these Worlds is divided into five or six zones which can be explored in any order and revisited over a period of time. Suitable for learners between the ages of 10 and 14, these vibrant resources will make students love learning English.

Key Features:

• A wide variety of topic-based material, covering a range of themes linked to the natural world

• A high level of visual attractiveness: students will love the appealing pictures of the natural world and the lively graphics

• Interactive, media-rich resource, including photos, audio and video

• Web projects, offering a chance for students to extend their knowledge by using authentic English on the internet

• Downloadable, customizable teacher's notes, providing suggestions for lead-in and follow-up skills practice for every zone in each of the Interactive Worlds

American English Interactive Worlds arrive in May 2009.

Are you one of the many Macmillan English Campus users who has been asking us for reading materials for teens? Well, in response to popular demand we're delighted to announce that from October 2008 we'll be publishing a monthly News item for teens graded at three language levels.

Teen interest

Based on articles from Spot on, a magazine written especially for teens studying English, the news items will include articles on topics which teens find interesting alongside enjoyable classroom activities.

Engaging activities

Each News item for teens will include an article, plus an activity to develop reading comprehension skills and a web project that can be completed in class or for homework. In addition, you can download an extended version of the article from our support site, along with a worksheet for use in class.

Downloadable worksheet

The worksheet includes lead-in activities to introduce the topic and present the key vocabulary, the reading text and follow-on activities. You can also refer to the worksheet for the answers to the comprehension questions. The News item for teens is the basis of an enjoyable lesson for teens that is quick and easy to prepare.

October's News item for teens

This month we are launching the News item for teens with an article about New Zealand: a country with fantastic scenery and home to extreme sports fanatics. The authors write about bungee jumping and scuba diving; meet the people who live and work in New Zealand's most beautiful natural areas; and interview the teenagers who enjoy these hair-raising adventures.

October sees the launch of Spot on news lessons for teens! Based on articles from Spot on magazine, this series includes worksheets and activities written by our Author of the month, Karen Richardson.

We know you've been on tenterhooks waiting to find out what happens to the characters in the onestopenglish soap opera, The Road Less Travelled. So, will Sal marry Rich? Will Katie confess all? Will Michael finally ask Katie out on a date? In anticipation of the launch of Season Two, we've prepared a special trailer to remind you of the story so far...

We've had lots of entries in the Onestopenglish Video Dictionary Competition and, after some serious debate here at onestopenglish HQ, we've chosen this worthy winner for October!

Onestopenglish Web Editor, Lucy Williams, writes:

Welcome to the onestopenglish Staff Room Open Day! This month, we're showcasing our huge range of subscription resources - click here to take a sneak peak inside the Staff Room.

September also sees the launch of Adrian Underhill's interactive phonemic chart. This excellent teaching tool can be played full-screen and gives clear audio examples of the English phoneme set.

The onestop reporters have been busy over the summer, travelling far afield to bring you Live from Oxford and Live from Edinburgh. And this month, the intrepid duo are back in London, asking locals and visitors questions about music and the news.

There's lots more great content - take your time to explore and enjoy another packed edition of onestopenglish!

Onestopenglish Web Editor, Lucy Williams, writes:

This month we think you should... check out the integrated skills video projects by our author of the month, Jackie McAvoy. Make sure you send us a link to the videos your students make - we'll show the best here on the site and add them to the onestopenglish YouTube channel.

Speaking of YouTube, we had some fantastic entries to the Onestopenglish Video Dictionary Competition. Thanks to everyone who's entered - keep your videos coming in as we haven't chosen a winner yet and the prize is still up for grabs!

And did you know that you can now receive the weekly news lessons as podcasts? Each week, we record an extract from the weekly news lesson and publish it as a podcast. Read Tim Bowen's tips and suggestions for ways to integrate these podcasts into your lessons.

There's lots of other great content, so please take time to explore and enjoy another packed edition of onestopenglish!

Online testing is now available with Macmillan English Campus

Macmillan English Campus can now be used as a testing tool as well as an online practice environment with the major addition of the new Test Compiler. This fantastic new resource enables you to compile and publish tests to your students under exam conditions, using specially created new content.

Containing 650 entirely new exercises, with over 6,500 individual questions, the Test Compiler increases the volume of Campus content by over 20%. What's more, these new exercises are not accessible to students until they are formally set as a test by the school or you, the teacher. This extensive resource will be an invaluable tool for progress testing.

New exam content

In addition to the Test Compiler, upcoming changes to the CAE and FCE syllabuses are reflected in the English Campus this month, as part of our ongoing commitment to new publishing. There are 41 completely new exam practice materials and all other resources have been rewritten to match the updated exams.

There are also another 100 new English Campus exercises across the Cambridge ESOL suite of exams.

Training users

The English Campus training department is organising online training sessions on the Test Compiler for existing users. You can find details on www.connect2mec.com. There will be Test Compiler clinics running throughout August, September and October.

The British English Test Compiler is available now: the American English version will be published on 25 August, in time for the new academic year.

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If your question isn't answered above or if you would like to know more about the English Campus email us at englishcampus@macmillan.com

Are you interested in blended learning but not sure how to get on board?

Meet Vilson Oliveira Filho. He's the e-learning manager for Cultura Inglesa in Brazil. They have been using the English Campus, which they call the e-Campus, since 2003.

We asked him to answer some of your queries.

What is the feedback from your clients and teachers on using the English Campus?

At the moment the e-Campus is mainly used as the online complement to our face-to-face courses for all our students. It is also used in the classrooms via interactive whiteboards to provide support for the activities developed in the lessons. Activities from the e-Campus are integrated in all our courses. At the moment we have approximately 60,000 users.

The feedback from clients and teachers is very positive. Clients see it as a very helpful tool for extra practice and reference that can be accessed from anywhere they have an internet connection. Teachers also see the tool as helpful since they can very quickly find activities for practice of specific language items or skills using the search mechanisms.

How much time is allocated per week for using the English Campus - both for teaching and for monitoring students' progress?  

Since it is part of a varied programme offered to clients, the time spent by teachers using the e-Campus in their lessons varies from lesson to lesson.

As regards to monitoring time, the tool makes it easy to monitor students' progress and that is usually done on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

What advice could you offer on how we can make the launch of a blended learning programme run smoothly?

The resources available are vast and it is important to plan ways of exposing students to the resources and features gradually and frequently so that they see the value and understand how the tool works. Students usually see the value of the tool when they have done something that helped them or been shown an activity or feature that could help them. 

Macmillan English Campus announces a new contract with English UK

Macmillan English Campus is delighted to announce the signing of a new contract with English UK. This is the leading English language teaching association in the UK, with over 350 member schools.

The launch of the 'English UK Campus' makes MEC easily available to all of English UK's member schools, without the need to sign a contract. Schools can instead purchase blocks of user IDs direct from English UK. This means that English UK members, whatever their size, will benefit from being able to ease themselves into offering blended learning programmes - starting small and growing their usage as they become more familiar with MEC.

John Murray, Sales and Marketing Director for MEC, said 'We're delighted to be working more closely with English UK and helping English UK members introduce blended learning solutions to their customers.'

Adding value

This new contract means that English UK members can enjoy the many different benefits offered by MEC, including:

Improved results: students can practise anytime and anywhere, using any computer that has an internet connection. Both weaker and stronger students can benefit from exercises which either consolidate or extend their knowledge, through use of the 3,500 exercises in the database.

Saves time and resources: MEC is self-marking, removes the need to administer supplementary products such as CD-ROMs and worksheets and is entirely hosted by Macmillan.

Valuable exam study resources: MEC provides extensive exam preparation material and facilitates exam success.

A unique competitive advantage: Using MEC places an institution at the forefront of learning technology.

Strengthening links

For English UK, the new contract provides a way to extend the benefits offered by their membership programme - using the combined size of their member schools for the benefit of individual institutions. The new English Campus will be fully branded with the English UK logo, which will further reinforce these links.

As for every new customer, training sessions will be held by the MEC training team and all new users can be assured of ongoing support through the MEC support site, blog and MEC clinics.

Mark Rendell, Deputy Chief Executive of English UK, said 'We're always looking to expand the services we offer to our members and this new agreement shows one of the benefits of being part of a consortium in this way: improving accessibility for individual members.'

In May we're showing off a huge selection of listening materials! Check out our audio and podcasts section for authentic interviews in 'Live from London'; the onestopenglish soap opera, The Road Less Travelled and serialized Macmillan Readers, the latest of which is The Well. For new subscribers there is also the chance to win an iPod nano, making it even easier to listen to podcasts when and wherever you want!

May also welcomes the latest characters from the Onestop Phonics series for young learners, Gertie Grape and Harry Hamburger. Keep your eyes peeled for letters Ii to Ll, which will also be published this month.

If you teach English to adults at beginner level, we'd really appreciate your help with our latest research. Click here to take part.

There's lots of other great content, so please take time to explore and enjoy another packed edition of onestopenglish.

The Moscow Institute of Linguistics - a Macmillan English Campus Case Study

The Moscow Institute of Linguistics (MIL) is one of the newest users of the Macmillan English Campus (MEC). MIL started using MEC in December 2007 and teaches students ranging in age from 12 to 60, at a variety of levels, from beginner to advanced.

We asked teachers at MIL to explain how they were using MEC and what benefits the implementation of a blended learning solution has brought.

A practical solution

Asked why MIL chose to adopt MEC, Vadim Klimachev, a senior teacher, says it provides the opportunity 'to make language learning highly effective, interesting, up-to-date and diverse'.

He describes the way in which, having been assigned to an appropriate course, 'the students are asked to complete a set of tasks within a specific period (normally a week or two); typical difficulties and mistakes are analysed and discussed in class with the teacher'.

One of the things that the teachers highlight is the flexibility that using MEC brings. As one teacher says, MEC 'can be used in accordance with students' individual needs. There is plenty of listening, which is often the most difficult aspect for language learners, and it can be used both in class and at home.'

Other teachers, asked how they use MEC, highlight its usefulness for homework and how, once exercises have been completed, it often leads to further discussion in class.

Learner autonomy

Students benefit from being able to work at their own pace, completing supplementary activities if necessary. Those who happen to miss a lesson can 'use MEC to go through material covered during a class they missed' and MEC also makes it easy to 'work on the aspects they need to revise'.

Other teachers also highlight the way that MEC 'offers students the opportunity to work independently' and provides 'a wide range of exercises on different topics'. They also note that many 'students are carried away by the process of testing their English on the internet and fulfil much more than the tasks set by the teacher!'

In this context, the automatic markbook is really useful, with teachers commenting that students enjoy 'the ability to check their results immediately and retry exercises'.

Teacher support

MEC also helps teachers to support students with greater effectiveness, due to its in-built monitoring facilities such as the markbook. Vadim highlights the 'ease of checking students' results and evaluating progress of their work'. Consequently, the time saved in lesson preparation and marking can be used to support students in other ways.

The approach taken by MIL works because of this complementary combination of face-to-face teaching and online resources.

Feedback about MEC and e-learning in general points to the fact that being able to use online resources increases motivation, and provides a structured and easy way to practise. In doing so, learner confidence is increased and results are improved. This produces a great result for the Moscow Institute of Linguistics!

Implementing a blended-learning programme can sometimes seem intimidating, due to the gaps in teachers' knowledge as to how technology can be used. To address this, new institutions using MEC are provided with comprehensive training and support. We are also on hand to provide advice and training further down the line.

We caught up with Steph Earnshaw and Sarah Milligan from the MEC training department and asked them about their role and the support they provide for teachers and students using MEC.

Steph and Sarah are both former English teachers, which makes them ideally suited to address the issues that teachers face. Asked about their favourite parts of the job, both agree that it is very satisfying giving teachers the tools that they need to use MEC effectively.

As Steph puts it, 'It's great to see how, at the end of the training, teachers are excited and full of ideas of how to use MEC with their students.' Sarah adds, 'It's very rewarding being able to ease the concerns of those teachers who may not be so used to using technology and to show them how straightforward MEC is to use.'

Online resources
One of the ways in which Steph and Sarah provide support after initial training sessions is in the provision of many different online resources. Asked to summarise what is available, Steph lists the guide to MEC, lesson plans, MEC basics material and dictionary skills worksheets. These are all available on the English Campus support site.

Clinics
Steph and Sarah have also been organising online training sessions, referred to as 'clinics', which are available free of charge to all users of the English Campus, whether new or established. This forms part of the ongoing support provided by the MEC team.

Feedback
If you're a current MEC user, you may have seen that the training team are currently carrying out a survey of all existing customers. Please do join in and return feedback forms to Sarah Milligan (s.milligan@macmillan.com) or contact her for more information.

March on onestopenglish sees the launch of the Onestop Phonics series for young learners, by Rachel Finnie. This great series will provide teachers with comprehensive support for their phonics teaching, including tips for structuring phonics lessons, as well as teacher's notes, worksheets, audio and flashcards to use in class. The first two instalments are free for all onestopenglish users, so come and join the fun with Alice Apple, Bobby Banana and friends!

This month we've also got a brand-new series of integrated skills video projects by Jackie McAvoy. In the first of these projects - At the movies - students produce their own audio or video recording of a movie review. We'll show some of the best programmes here on onestopenglish, so send us your entries!

There's lots of other great content so please take the time to explore and enjoy another packed edition of onestopenglish!

Macmillan English Campus announces the release of new American English TOEIC® material

Macmillan English Campus is delighted to be publishing over 100 new American English resources to support the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC®) exam from ETS. Written by experienced TOEIC® authors, the resources provide practice for all seven parts of the listening and reading exam.

The TOEIC® material also supports the new speaking and writing test from ETS, by providing a series of sample answers, with hints on preparing, timing and responding to typical questions.

With the broad range of coverage it provides, this exam practice material offers essential support to students wishing to take the new TOEIC®.

Key Features

• Exercises written by experienced TOEIC® authors
• Use of ETS-licensed TOEIC® rubrics
• Text and question types provide authentic exam practice
• Hints on how to answer TOEIC® questions in each listening and reading exercise
• Advice on planning, timing and answering the speaking and writing questions
• Exercises include over 400 questions
• Comprehensive coverage of the new TOEIC® exam
• Up-to-date section weightings, text types and question format
• Support of new TOEIC® speaking and writing test

To view more detailed information about the new exercises, please click here.

Since the first release of the Macmillan English Campus in 2003, we've been committed to expanding and updating the content available. In order to improve the design, add new features and allow us to develop new kinds of teaching material, we've just launched a new edition, which is now being rolled out to all our customers.

New features in the Macmillan English Campus include:

• Improved navigation - allowing users to find their way around with greater ease

• A new, updated look - with an improved design and more user-friendly interface

• Customization tools - letting users choose the graphic 'skin' they want and allowing institutions to include their logo on every page of the English Campus, in place of the MEC logo

• Improved user and course management - making administration of the English Campus much simpler

• More detailed usage statistics for institutions - allowing you to see how often your students are accessing the Campus and how they are progressing

Alongside this upgrade, we remain committed to continuing to publish fantastic new types of content in the future. Coming up next year:

• Test Compiler: over 600 new exercises across all levels available to teachers and administrators within MEC, allowing them to build tests and publish them to their students

• English for Academic Purposes content: a new flexible bank of EAP resources. This material will support both academic language, in the form of grammar and vocabulary, and essential study skills. It will also provide an introduction to life at an English-speaking university.

New CEF course pathways now available!

We are delighted to announce the publication of five new courses built to correspond to the levels of the Common European Framework (CEF) as well as 100 additional examination resources.

The CEF is recognized as a standard framework for language teaching around the world. Five new courses have been published to the English Campus, at levels A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. These will make it much easier for new and existing users to align English Campus content with their existing language programmes, by providing a truly global basis for comparison.

British English users can also access six new courses structured to correspond to the Macmillan Inside Out and New Inside Out coursebook series. These join the existing In Company courses.

100 new exam preparation exercises for the Cambridge suite of examinations are now also available.

Combined with the existing database of 300 exam exercises, the Macmillan English Campus now offers an even more comprehensive resource for students working towards the BEC, CAE, CPE, FCE, KET and PET qualifications.

This new update brings the number of resources available within the English Campus to over 3,000.